18 and Counting (New Duggar Baby)

Please excuse the personal note, but it impacts on this story: My wife and I were blessed with our first child just days before Jordyn-Grace was born (I guess I am no Jim Bob) and we used the same obstetrician as Michelle Duggar. She was also delivered by emergency C-section. Our obstetrician is a woman who is married to a man who is also an obstetrician. In our case husband was on duty and did the delivery while his wife assisted. We think that both of them are wonderful doctors.

The wife doctor of this team is known for working with women who want to give birth naturally even after they have had a C-section. With most doctors, once a woman has had a C-section they want her to keep having them that way, even if everything is fine. Michelle Duggar expressed a desire to birth naturally even though she had a C-section with a previous birth, and she expressed how glad she was to have this female doctor who would work with her on that. In the event Michelle had to change plans on account of medical circumstances, just as we did.

PS- We hope that two daughters born days apart become life-long friends.

24 Comments:

The good news is that with lottery money for education there will be almost enough money to send all of Duggar children to college. And my bet is they'd graduate not ever having had to take a remedial course.

Anonymous: do you also think it strange that NONE of these children (or the parents) are on welfare, probably have never been through the juvenile justice system, and as DumbArkie says, probably will never have to take a remedial course? Large families like the Duggars were the norm, not the exception, in early America. Farm life was hard and required manual labor, but reaped great rewards in conveying to the next generation a good work ethic, family & Christian morality, sharing, charity from within (not from a cold, faceless, uncaring, bureaucratic government), and the value of education (and not a government indoctrination-style education). I believe the values gained from early American family life significantly contributed to America becoming a world power. Watch (or rewatch) episodes of "The Waltons" to see values & morality that made America great, much of which is slowly fading away, sadly. Unemployment (idleness), self-indulgence, STDs, substance abuse, & domestic violence: not present here.

If evolution were true, everybody would think like the Duggars. There would be none of this having sex but hoping that no children resulted (or taking active measures to prevent children from resulting). We would be honed by 500 million years of evolution to focus on reproduction, not simply sex that is a waste of reproductive energy.

All of the secular folks who claim that they believe in evolution live like its false. The Duggars who don't believe it are the ones who live out its principles.

Well...if the mother were breastfeeding in a natural way, she wouldn't have that many children, so one really has to wonder if there's some other motivation going on here. They receive all kinds of freebies and they did get paid for their television appearances. It is legitimate to question the motivation of parents who seem focused on Guiness World Records more than actually spending time with each child, understanding who he or she is as an individual and doing their best to help each child develop to their unique talents and gifts. These kids have to take a number to get face time with a parent. At this point, they may be lucky to get face time with an older sibling.

What they're doing really isn't natural by any means and it's going to come back to haunt them sooner or later.

Gee, anonymous, I wonder what would have happened if YOUR mother had said . . . "Nope, I don't need any (more) children." You don't think it's natural to have children? Perhaps we should call you Chairman Mao. To you then, I suppose blogging is more natural than having children. Who are you to question their motivation? As far as I'm concerned, as long as they don't ask the government (you & me) to support them, they can have as many children as they want. As I said before, they are not asking the taxpayers to foot the bill for any of these children, and the freebies they get likely aren't coming from the taxpayers. Some of the freebies, if not most or all, come from sponsors, just like Tiger Woods' sponsors. Should Tiger, then, quit playing golf because he gets freebies just as you say these people should quit having children? I say the world could use more people like the Duggar children.

I will concede the parents probably can't spend a great deal of time with each child one-on-one; however, I would submit that they DO get plenty of time with their older siblings. Is that as important? Perhaps. Who's to say that quality time with siblings isn't just as important as time with a parent during developmental years? Even parents with only one child don't spend every waking moment with the child, due to work, school, time with friends, ball practices/games and other activities. You think this is going to come back & haunt them? I'd love to know your thinking on how.

It is reported that her latter children are not gaining weight properly with breast feeding. There is no evidence that she is acting against the interests of her children to increase volume.

I just can't buy the theory that she was doing all this to be famous. No one paid them any mind nationally until they got to about 15 children. No one has 15 children in the hopes that they might start making money out of it from 16+.

I never said it wasn't natural to have children. I said it was not truly natural for a human being to have that many children in that period of time if the mother were approaching motherhood from a truly natural perspective. Our bodies are not made to do this. If Mrs. Duggar were exclusively breastfeeding each child through the first two years -- which is genuinely "natural" -- it's highly unlikely she would have become pregnant so often. Exclusive breastfeeding suppresses ovulation.

That she has had so many in the time frame she's had them in is due to the fact she hasn't ever exclusively breastfed any of her children to the extent our bodies (and babies' bodies) were meant to provide/receive natural nourishment, and to the fact modern medicine has allowed her children to survive the first several years of childhood (a relatively recent development).

I don't think the Duggars intended to pop out babies for the publicity, but one certainly has to wonder what is going on with them psychologically at this point. The wellbeing of each individual child is obviously not a priority. I can't imagine the Duggars have anything remotely resembling a real relationship with any of these kids. That will come back to haunt them -- and their kids. The religious right is quick to tell us how putting kids in daycare from an early age on, or raising kids in single parent or same sex couple homes will warp the kids -- how is this any different? These parents aren't spending any more time with these kids than the average working couple, they are often assigned to a particular older sibling (as opposed to a mother and a father), and the publicity has turned their lives into a freak show.

Nice try Anon but no dice - I'm not the one who said it wouldn't haunt them; YOU said it would. The burden is on you to back up your assertion and state how. I do agree with Mark that no one has 15 children hoping to cash in with a cable TV show at 16. Not to mention I think I heard Michelle say after the most recent child that they're not through.

You said "it was not truly natural for a human being to have that many children in that period of time if the mother were approaching motherhood from a truly natural perspective." How then, do you explain that many early American families frequently had 10, 12, 14 children LONG before modern medicine allowed children to "survive the first several years of childhood." I personally know of one local family with ten children and another with eight. I will say again I believe it to be their right to have as many children as they wish, provided they don't ask the government (you & I) to support them, AND provided the children aren't abused (ala Jim Jones, Tony Alamo, David Koresh, Warren Jeffs et al) and that it causes no harm to others. Say what you want about the Duggars, but it is for neither you nor I to say how many children they have.You seem to be making a judgmental distinction between having a few children and having many children, i.e. that it's OK to have 1 or 2 but not 16. So should children 3-16, then, be aborted? Again, who are you to say how many children anyone has or should have? Your postings are also beginning to contradict one another: first you said the Duggars seemed focused on getting a Guinness Record, then you later said you don't think they're popping out babies for the publicity. Which is it?I would also counter that the Duggar situation is quite different from daycare, and single- & homosexual parent households. To compare them as you do is being intellectually dishonest - study after study shows that children do significantly better (by a number of measures) when raised in a traditional two-parent (one female mom & one male dad, married) household than those raised in other non-traditional households. I realize these facts probably won't change your mind, but I do hope it will serve as food for thought nonetheless.

Growing up Irish Catholic, I'm used to large families, come from one myself, and have five children of my own.

As someone who grew next to several neighbors who had upwards of ten children, I've witnessed the down side. The younger children are completely lost. The parents are burned out, resources are burned out, and everyone assumes they'll just sort of raise themselves somehow. More often than not, these kids didn't even have both parents through their teen years. They were the kids most likely to drink, use drugs, get in sexual situations, drop out of school (high school in their case, because college, if ever a possibility for any of the kids, was a pipe dream by the time you got to the second half of the family), etc.

This thoughtless, ignorant behavior will most definitely come back to haunt these poor kids. You're probably right about the parents, though. I doubt it will come back to haunt them because they don't seem to really give much thought and individual attention to these poor kids anyway. If they lose a couple along the way, figuratively or literally, they probably won't even care.

You're the one making assumptions here. I'm anti abortion, I have more than 1-2 children myself, but I also happen to think this Duggar situation is very strange. There's something not quite right there, IMO.

It was not normal for families to have 14 surviving children before fairly recent history. That's a documented fact. 14 pregancies, sure, and perhaps even 14 live births, but not 14 children surviving to adulthood. AAMOF, it was unusual for a woman to survive long enough to sustain that many pregnancies. Do your homework. A family consisting of the same mother and father and 14 children surviving into adulthood was actually pretty rare.

I think the Duggars may have been just having lots of kids, and then they started getting the publicity and now the situation has grown out of control. I don't think they intended from their wedding night on to pop out babies, but I do think the publicity has gone to their heads and they feel determined to keep on going for publicity's sake now. I could be wrong, but maybe I'm not. No one but God and the Duggars really know for sure.

The Duggar situation is most definitely comparable to other non-traditional family settings. The younger children are handed off to older siblings, which means there's no real adult caring for any one of these later kids 24/7, plus the older kids are being used by their parents as free labor. It's immoral and wrong. There are kids in that family who may not talk to an actual parent in any meaningful way for a day or two at a time.

That's immoral and wrong and the fertility-cult faction of the pro-life crowd will justify it merely because another female somewhere popped out another baby and that's all that matters -- once the kid is out of her womb and taking a breath, he or she ceases to matter anymore.

This will be my last posting b/c as I said, I know I'm not going to change your closed mind, but I hope you will consider the facts nonetheless. Re: the older kids being used as free labor, this has been going on for centuries, particularly in agri-based economies. I had to mow our lawn beginning at about age 10, and my older brother before me, and we thought at the time we had it rough. We didn't have to get up at 5 a.m., milk cows, gather eggs, slop pigs, or do other farm-related chores as many children of early American families did. Taking care of younger sibs is simply part of the family package. What should the older Duggar kids do all day instead, then . . . play Grand Theft Auto? Listen to cop-killing-promoting, drug-culture glamorizing, misogynistic rap music? Maybe those activities are healthier than spending time with younger sibs; I just happen not to think so.I'm not saying that children shouldn't have play time; they absolutely should. They need "kid time" no doubt about it. There is time during the day for that, even amongst all the laundry, cooking & cleaning that needs doing.

Comparing the Duggar situation to single/homosexual parent households and daycare is like comparing night to day. Do your own homework to find out that 70% of kids raised in single parent households receive some type of government assistance before age 18. Where are your stats? I see none in your posting. Your evidence is merely anecdotal; I don't doubt the situations are out there as you describe, but they're not the norm. The fact is, yes, it is hard to raise that many kids in today's culture, under certain circumstances. For instance, if kids attend public schools, there is peer pressure to have the latest designer clothes, shoes, backpacks, cell phones, video games, cars, etc. That would be difficult for most families to afford all those things if they had many children. If they aren't exposed to today's sensationalism, and taught those things aren't necessary for a happy, productive life, then they often won't end up on drugs, getting in sex situations, drop out of school, etc. as you describe. Many studies also show that keeping things simple is better for kids; i.e. fewer toys rather than more; reading books rather than watching videos/chatting on the internet; family time together (particularly meal time) rather than fast-food eaten in the car. I applaud you for having 5 kids; I have 4 myself. The fact is, your argument fails after parents have more than 1 child, b/c mom & dad cannot spend all their free time with just one child after that. You will never convince me that single/homosexual parent households or daycare are better than traditional one-mom, one-dad (married) families, the number of children they have notwithstanding.

Doing household chores is not the same as asking your older children to raise your younger children. There's a huge difference. Asking the older children to raise the younger ones is burdening them with responsibilities they are not equipped to handle and it is putting the younger children at a disadvantage. These are HUMAN LIVES we're talking about here, not somebody's bloody lawn or kitchen floor or frickin' cow.

There is a middle ground between being forced into the position of parent at the age of 13 and plotzing on the sofa playing video games all day. You seem to think it's an either/or, and then you claim _I_ have a closed mind...?? Yikes!

Why are you arguing against single family parenting? How is that even a topic here? Yes, I agree. Non-traditional family settings come with more disadvantages. We are on the same page here. I think it is equally as problematic to grow up in a family where the parents are unavailable to each child on a regular basis as it is to grow up in a single parent family or family where both parents work full time.

You're now talking about "kid time". I'm talking about real live adult parent time. Parents. You know, thosee people who brought these kids into the world and yet who barely even know them...

As for public school blather, well, name me the district. There are huge, sweeping generalizations about public education spewed by the backwater homeschooling crowd that are laughably inaccurate. Are we talking about the highly acclaimed NYC public school in Chinatown where almost 100% of the graduates go on to top notch universities? The solidly Jewish public school system in which I live where the stats are the same and we send more kids to the Ivies than just about any other public school system in the country? Just because public school in Arkansas is awful doesn't mean it is everywhere, and, again, you dismiss the fact there is a middle ground -- private school, either secular or religious.

And once again you swing from one extreme to another because YOUR closed mind can't handle the notion that there's any reasonable middle ground between breeding like a mindless hamster and abortion.

If you can't see there's a difference between thoughtfully and mindfully having several children and mindlessly breeding a baby a year, then you just aren't capable of rational, reasoned discussion. It's impossible to intelligently, thoughtfully, nurturingly parent 18 children. Impossible.

Also, where did I try to convince you that single parent families, same sex parent families or dual income families were better than a traditional family setting? If you had bothered to read what I actually wrote, I was stating that these are disadvantaged situations for the children, no matter how few or many there are. I also believe that having a family so large that you don't really know any of your children all that well is just as disadvantaged.

Just because someone thumps a Bible and is anti abortion doesn't mean whatever else they do is a good thing, and just because you're not on welfare doesn't make you a good parent. You seem to be asserting that just because there's a Christian mother and father, anything they do is okay. It's not.

You also never once addressed the issues I witnessed with these larger families. You want to make ridiculous assumptions about anyone who doesn't agree with you, state people are saying the opposite of what they actually did say (and the words are still there for others to read), and then call them closed-minded for not capitulating to you instantly. And this helps anyone even want to look at the Duggars differently exactly how...?

Kissing in public is a freedom/right we all have. Most of us do it on ocassion. There are people who take it way to far, practicly having sex in public , we have all seen them. Those people are the Duggers. With rights come resposibilties. The mother is a human clown car.

I think this family is pathetic. It's children raising children whether they want to or not. The children never asked to be in a family this big. It's just unfair to them. The mother must have no self-respect - she's considered a baby factory. This whole thing is disgusting.

I think that the Duggar's are the most wonderful family that I have ever heard of. I watch the show religiously,and I am very impressed with the way that they are raising their wonderful children. Children are a blessing from God,and the Duggar family knows that. In this liberally-minded society that we live in it is refreshing to see a family raising their children with such high standards,and morals.

I am 1 of 12. How dare anyone say what's right for another! If my mother stopped at 4 I wouldn't be here. If she stopped at 6, I wouldn't be here. We are not government property, not welfare, and never were. We appreciated a dollar, and knew what it was worth. My parents put in a built in swimming pool after comparing the price of sending everyone to the public pool.

I am 1 in the 13 and already have two of my own. My husband and I, both think that children are gifts from above. My mom, breastfed each one of us and the difference between all the children is 1-2 years apart. My mom had the last two via C-section and all of the kids are healthy and well. Four of us are already married. Yes, it's tough raising a large family especially these days.

I think every woman's body is different.... Some woman get pregnant when they breastfeed and don't even know they are. And some get pregnant after they are done breastfeeding. Again, we are not the ones to judge here. I think Mr. and Mrs. Duggars family is a very beautiful and well mannered family. I would rather have the world filled with these kind of people rather than having one or two alcoholics or drug dealers. I like the fact that all of the Duggar's kids are home schooled. And, the fact they older siblings watch after the younger is pretty much appropriated in the family. It doesn't mean that parents gave the responsibility to raise their younger children to an older sibling. As far as I know, they are not teaching younger siblings to read and write.... but they are helping younger siblings to dress up in the morning, teach them how to brush their teeth... and how to make a bed. Growing up myself (I am the 2nd oldest) I enjoyed doing chores around the house especially to be a big sister in the house.

I think that Michelle Duggar is a wonderful woman and to do what she does takes a lot of courage and patience. God is with them.

I,m the oldest of 20. one boy and19 girl's. We are all ten months apart.My father would work three jobs.we had a very nice farm.we home grew what we ate.We did attend a public school.what I would like to know is what will happen to all the younger children if by chance something were to happen to the parents?will the Duggar children be willing to care for their sibs?or will they be taken if for any reason something wasnt put in writing as to what should be done?if the Duggar s have not made out a plan then they need to do it now.one thing for sure they do not want the state to come in and take over since their wasnt anything in writing.we were were called the McCord clan with helping hands.

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